This disclosure relates to the field of removable and replaceable brush heads and, more particularly, to a brush head attachable to a personal grooming device.
Personal grooming devices used for, e.g., skin cleansing have become increasingly common in recent years. Most of these personal grooming devices include a hand-held appliance housing one or more electric motors, with the electric motor(s) configured to rotate or oscillate at least a portion of an attached brush head so as to provide a cleansing action on the user's skin. Due to the need for frequent cleaning and/or replacement, the brush heads are configured to be removable from the hand-held appliance.
In some arrangements, the attached brush head includes two separate portions: a first, stationary portion having a plurality of bristles, and a second, movable portion, also having a plurality of bristles. In most configurations, the stationary portion annularly surrounds the movable portion, with the movable portion being couplable to a drive member of the hand-held appliance such that the movable portion may oscillate and/or rotate relative to the stationary portion. One example of such a brush head and hand-held appliance configuration is found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,386,906, which discloses a brush head having movable, central portion positioned within a stationary portion. The movable portion of the brush head disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 7,386,906 includes a plurality of depending legs, with the depending legs being operably coupled to a driving hub of the hand-held appliance so as to impart oscillatory and/or rotary motion on the movable portion of the brush head. To hold the movable portion within the stationary portion while still allowing for this oscillatory and/or rotary motion, some of the depending legs also include locking snap elements which are configured to engage a surface of the stationary portion of the brush head. However, while this configuration may axially retain the movable portion relative to the stationary portion under most conditions, the reliance upon only the locking snap elements of select depending legs to axially hold the movable portion within the stationary portion may cause to the movable portion to become dislodged from the surrounding stationary portion in the event that the depending legs are misaligned with the driving hub and/or if sufficient axial force is applied to the brush head during installation on the hand-held appliance.
This patent document describes an apparatus that may address at least some of the issues described above and/or other issues.